Hello All, I'm new to the Space fellowship site and I was hoping I could get some feedback for an idea I've been thinking about for a while.

Sadly, I don't know enough about science and physics to shoot enough holes in my idea. I'm looking for some better read people to provide their input and explain to me why I'm wrong.

First, this idea came to be because of nagging problems I've seen with the current cosmological model we have on gravity in the universe. It seems we have too much of it. From what I've read and seen there is not enough mass in the universe to explain all the gravity. Or at least to explain the amount of gravity it would take to hold everything together. The current idea is that Dark energy accounts for 70% of the universe and that dark energy accounts for all the extra gravity we have to have in order to hold the universe together.

My idea is that Gravity is not constant through out the universe. It makes sense to me that gravity is actually the counter force or opposite force created by the expansion of the universe.

Imagine a square sheet of plastic stretched at each corner evenly. Basically four guys stretching out a tarp. Now put some rocks or round items with mass in the middle of it. Now put another tarp or plastic sheet on top of the other one, with the rocks in between.

Now let say you can stretch those two tarps out even more. As you stretch the two tarps will hug tighter to the rocks in between them. As the guys pull the tarps are trying to flatten out and the rocks are stopping that from happening.

Now imagine that the rocks are stars and planets (or anything with mass) and the tarps are space time hugging around the objects tighter and tighter as space expands.

To me, to me this explains Gravity in space time rather well. Space time being the tarps pulling and gravity being the force hugging around the objects between the tarps.

Now imagine one of the guys holding the corners is being lazy and he doesn't pull his tighter with the rest. You would see folds or creases in tarps. Image if one guy pulls his corner up and the other pulls it down. The tarps would contort in all manner of directions and would pull on the rocks in all kinds of weird ways. It would be tighter in some areas and weaker in others.

If we relate this to the universe it would mean that gravity (the counter fore pulling on the rocks)changes depending on how space time contorts.

Could this explain the oddness of gravity rather then saying a weird energy we know nothing about is holding the universe together?

This would also explain the vast area of the universe that is Blank or has no stars that we can see. That area would be a large fold or kink in space time. Kind of where the space time tarp wrinkled up.

Does that coincide with what we know about gravity and the universe?

Just a thought from an arm chair science nerd. I'd like to hear any input others may have on the idea.

well, I'm not a PH.D of Mathematics but I've run some basic principles that it might apply. If the idea was true.

It would take years of math to be able to prove something so complex. And, before I start shopping it around to mathematicians I'd like to know if there are some principles and science already out there that proves me wrong from the start.

I'd like to get some thoughts of others who also enjoy the science nerd arts.

I'd like to know if there are laws of Gravity that I'm missing? Principles I'm not aware of? Stuff like that.

From what I've read and seen there is not enough mass in the universe to explain all the gravity. Or at least to explain the amount of gravity it would take to hold everything together. The current idea is that Dark energy accounts for 70% of the universe and that dark energy accounts for all the extra gravity we have to have in order to hold the universe together.

As far as I know, that is dark matter that you're speaking of, not dark energy. It seems to be matter, as it exerts a gravitational pull, but we're not seeing it, hence it's dark.

One place where dark matter shows up is when looking at distant galaxies. The stars in them orbit the centre of the galaxy, but if you run the numbers, it turns out that at the speed at which these stars are moving, they should be flying away from the galaxy. Yet, they remain in orbit, so something we can't see must be pulling them inward. Dark matter, whatever it may be. Some hypotheses don't have any extra matter at all, they just say that gravity is stronger than we think (based on observations of the planets in our solar system, which are much closer to the sun than these stars are to the centre of their galaxy) at the huge distances involved when you're looking at entire galaxies.

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Now imagine one of the guys holding the corners is being lazy and he doesn't pull his tighter with the rest. You would see folds or creases in tarps.

Only when your tarp is imperfectly elastic. Then, in that direction, there will be too much fabric for the covered distance, and it will bunch up. If your tarp is perfectly elastic (i.e. it will shrink down to a point if you let it) then it will stay smooth.

Newtonian dynamics say that we live in a flat space-time. General relativity says that that flat space-time is bent by the presence of mass, and so that we live in a curved space-time. Now what you are saying, if I understand correctly, is that even without mass space-time is curved, and that those intrinsic potholes and wrinkles are what's keeping those galaxies together. Presumably, the matter in that galaxy is where it is because it drifted into the pothole, and with the tarp being elastic, it's deepening the hole, and the combined curvature is enough to keep those stars going in circles at the speeds they're doing.

That's an interesting idea. How would you distinguish an intrinsic pothole in the fabric of space-time from invisible matter floating about within that space-time?

_________________Say, can you feel the thunder in the air? Just like the moment ’fore it hits – then it’s everywhereWhat is this spell we’re under, do you care? The might to rise above it is now within your sphereMachinae Supremacy – Sid Icarus

Your theory is based on a very 2-dimensional visualization. I doubt it can hold up as you increase to 4 dimensions. I also agree with most of what Lourens said.I came up with an alternative theory which goes some way towards explaining the anomalies observed in the distant universe. My theory assumes that the speed of light has not been constant throughout the history of the universe. Humans have only been able to conduct experiments which measure the speed of light for the last few hundred years. This is a tiny window of observation compared to the length of time the universe has been producing light for. It may take many more centuries for science to discover if the speed of light is changing. Even if someone was to design an experiment that could improve our measurements today, any difference to the measurements taken 100 years ago would be brushed aside as experimental inaccuracies in the earlier measurements.So how does a changing speed of light constant explain the anomalies seen in the early universe? Well the light leaving those faraway galaxies is usually red-shifted, and astronomers use that red-shift to calculate how far away those galaxies are. If the speed of light was slower when that light was emitted, as it speeds up the waves would (could) seem to stretch slightly, thus giving the appearance of red-shift. This changes both the distance of the observed galaxy and the rate at which it is moving away from us, if it is moving away at all.That's just one example of an observation that would be affected. E=Mc^2 would alter any relativistic effects observed in those faraway galaxies, such as the orbital speeds of stars at the galaxies core. These are the same measurements that have generated the dark matter theories.

I'm not trying to hijack your thread, you just reminded me of when I came up with this theory. I've talked to a lot of people about it since then and nobody has poked a good hole in it. I'm not sure how an experiment could be designed to determine if the speed of light changes over time though.

Thanks guys for the great responses. You've given me a lot to think over so forgive me if my response is a bit wordy.

First,"As far as I know, that is dark matter that you're speaking of, not dark energy. It seems to be matter, as it exerts a gravitational pull, but we're not seeing it, hence it's dark."

You guys correct me if I'm wrong, but the current model (according the the Science channel ) is that the Universe is made up of about 20% dark matter and 70% dark energy. Along with 10% gases and viewable matter.

They got to that number because that's how much stuff it would take to make up for all the gravity we are seeing. Personally, I don't think we could have a universe made of 70% dark energy and have no way to observe it somehow. Of course that's just my opinion.

My opinion is that gravity changed depending on the amount of mass in a given area and the amount space time curves at a location.

"Presumably, the matter in that galaxy is where it is because it drifted into the pothole, and with the tarp being elastic, it's deepening the hole, and the combined curvature is enough to keep those stars going in circles at the speeds they're doing."

Yes and no, I think that the folds would have to be so large that a planet or star could not drift into a observable fold throughout it's life time. However, the elasticity of space time in a certain area would depend on how much mass is in that area. Going back to our Tarp example, if you put 90% of your rocks in the top 1/4th of the tarp then that corner would not pull out as much. The rocks in the tarp are holding it in. Because of the rocks, the tarp has to cover more surface area and has to stretch more.

This extra amount of Mass would account for the contorting of the tarp. So the expansion could not spread uniformly because of the mass in that area. If it did expand uniformly despite the mass in that area (being pulled by some unknown force) the gravity on that mass would be must stronger because space time is being stretched tighter.

"How would you distinguish an intrinsic pothole in the fabric of space-time from invisible matter floating about within that space-time?"

If you could figure out the baseline of gravity and space time without any mass, then add up the amount of viewable mass in a given area, then add on the hypothesized 20% dark matter for that area, you should be able to determine the amount space time curves in that area and there for determine the gravity in that area. In theory.

I'm not sure how an experiment could be designed to determine if the speed of light changes over time though.

johno

Find an object that has been gravitationally lensed multiple times there are quite a few examples of this ideally one that has been bent towards us at a slight angle so that that the Hubble or other good kit can also spot the original unmagnified object(not sure if this has been done yet) then i think if light had changed over time some reasonably complex trigonometry would show that the differently magnified images would point to different places in the sky than to the original source object as they would have traveled for different amounts of time so any change in the speed of light over time would be magnified in one over the other giving different source positions for the original object as stated above.

I have also thought about gravity and have wondered if the "errors" that make us think about including dark matter are actually from mathematical "rounding errors" for if we live in a quantized universe as we seem to then a real perfect circle would be a equilateral triangle with sides one Planck length and a real perfect sphere a tetrahedron with said sides both empirically different from a mathematically perfect circle and sphere. As all matter seems to exert a gravitational effect on all other matter i think the differences would build up the more items in the equation so a galaxy sized object would have more errors than a solar system sized collection of objects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly which would have more errors than our base standard of the earth moon system which we have direct evidence ie can empirically test.

_________________Someone has to tilt at windmills.So that we know what to do when the real giants come!!!!

Johno,I think you're right that the 2D example is lacking, but I'm just using it as an example to explain the idea. If you were to extend it out to 3D it would be more of a irregular bubble. I think the current idea is that the universe is expanding like an perfect sphere, but I disagree. With this theory the bubble would twist and warp as it expands depending on how much mass is in a given area.

Now that I think of it, it might dovetail nicely with Einsteins theory of spacetime. If space time folded over due to uneven expansion and large amounts of mass then there may be points in the universe where space time has folded as Einstein predicted. We could move in between the folds via a wormhole. We could be right next to another galaxy and not know it. Depending on how the universe has contorted.

Of course we wouldn't be able to see this with light waves or gravity, because light and gravity can't travel (or at least don't that we know of) across folded space. Both have to take the long way around through space time.

On your idea about light speed, I'm pretty sure that light speed stays at a constant speed no matter when it left it's light source. I also believe that astronomers use other methods to confirm what distances they see due to red shift. Things like gravitational effect and speed variations between galaxies, etc. I don't know them all.

I do know that we've analyzed light waves that are millions of years old from stars at the edge of our galaxy. We've even seen light waves from the big bang and measured their speed. Light speed appears to remain constant in all our measurement that I'm aware of. Just my two cents.

Find an object that has been gravitationally lensed multiple times there are quite a few examples of this ideally one that has been bent towards us at a slight angle so that that the Hubble or other good kit can also spot the original unmagnified object(not sure if this has been done yet) then i think if light had changed over time some reasonably complex trigonometry would show that the differently magnified images would point to different places in the sky than to the original source object as they would have traveled for different amounts of time so any change in the speed of light over time would be magnified in one over the other giving different source positions for the original object as stated above.

I like it.

SANEAlex wrote:

I have also thought about gravity and have wondered if the "errors" that make us think about including dark matter are actually from mathematical "rounding errors" for if we live in a quantized universe as we seem to then a real perfect circle would be a equilateral triangle with sides one Planck length and a real perfect sphere a tetrahedron with said sides both empirically different from a mathematically perfect circle and sphere. As all matter seems to exert a gravitational effect on all other matter i think the differences would build up the more items in the equation so a galaxy sized object would have more errors than a solar system sized collection of objects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly which would have more errors than our base standard of the earth moon system which we have direct evidence ie can empirically test.